KARACHI, July 12: The little amount of drizzle that Karachi received on Monday morning - and which the Met Office summarily described as traces or less than one millimetre - caused power breakdowns in many localities of the city.

A resident of Adamjee Nagar said his locality lost its power supply, though briefly, as long as it drizzled. "It was a bit overcast in the morning, and I thought happily that it would finally rain. However, a power breakdown that occurred in the morning considerably dampened down by spirits," he said.

A resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 14, said that of late his locality had been experiencing multiple power breakdowns. "The telephone attendant at my regional complaint centre seems to have a good sense of humour.

When I asked him why a power breakdown had occurred today, he said that since the transmission and distribution system of the KESC in Gulshan was pretty fragile, prudent engineers switch it off before the drizzle lest it should collapse," he said.

A resident of Gulshan, Block 10A, said that though his sanctioned load was 13KVA, the voltage supply to his locality ranged between 150 volts and 175 volts. "The voltage supply remains so low that we cannot run all our air-conditioners at the same time.

We run them by turns. And to make matters worse, power supply to our locality also remains elusive," he said. A resident of Federal B Area, Block 18, said that while it did not even drizzle in his locality, power supply remained off for a couple of hours on Monday.

Sources in the centralized complaint centre of the KESC said they had received a number of complaints about drizzle-related power breakdowns on Monday. They said that the number of complaints would have been much higher had it rained heavily in the city.

They added that the areas which experienced power breakdowns included Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Federal B Area, Gulistan-i-Jauher, Clifton, Buffer Zone, North Karachi, PECHS Malir and Defence.